Rhetoricthe art of speaking or writing

effectively

A study of:

Ethos, Pathos and Logos

Ethos• Establishing your credibility (or character) as a

speaker

• Before you can convince an audience to accept anything you say, they have to accept you as credible.

Ethos• There are many aspects to building your

credibility:– Does the audience respect you?– Does the audience believe you are of good

character?– Does the audience believe you are generally

trustworthy?– Does the audience believe you are an authority on

this speech topic?

Ethos• Keep in mind that it isn’t enough for you to

know that you are a credible source. (This isn’t about your confidence, experience, or expertise.) Your audience must know this. Ethos is your level of credibility as perceived by your audience.

Pathos• Pathos is the quality of a persuasive

presentation which appeals to the emotions of the audience.

• As the speaker, you are establishing connections to your audience’s emotions

Pathos• Do your words evoke feelings of … love? …

sympathy? … fear?

• Do your visuals evoke feelings of compassion? … envy?

• Does your characterization of the competition evoke feelings of hate? contempt?

Pathos• Emotional connection can be created in many

ways by a speaker, perhaps most notably by stories. The goal of a story, anecdote, analogy, simile, and metaphor is often to link an aspect of our primary message with a triggered emotional response from the audience.

Logos• Use logic to support a claim and appeal to the

listener’s sense of reason. (Use facts, statistics, authorities, etc.)

• Creating a logical argument

Logos• Does your message make sense?

• Is your message based on facts, statistics, and evidence?

• Will your call-to-action lead to the desired outcome that you promise?

Which is most important? Ethos? Pathos? or Logos?

• Suppose two speakers give speeches about a new corporate restructuring strategy.

• The first speaker — a ninth grade student — gives a flawless speech pitching strategy A which is both logically sound and stirs emotions.

• The second speaker — a Fortune 500 CEO — gives a boring speech pitching strategy B.

Ethos, Pathos, or Logos?

• Which speech is more persuasive? Is the CEO’s speech more persuasive, simply because she has much more credibility (ethos)?

• Some suggest that pathos is the most critical of the three. In You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard, Bert Decker says that people buy on emotion (pathos) and justify with fact (logos). Is this true?

Ethos, Pathos, or Logos?

• Aristotle believed that logos should be the most important of the three persuasive appeals. As a philosopher and a master of logical reasoning, he believed that logos should be the only required persuasive appeal. That is, if you demonstrated logos, you should not need either ethos or pathos.

Ethos, Pathos, or Logos?

• However, Aristotle stated that logos alone is not sufficient. Not only is it not sufficient on its own, but it is no more important than either of the two other pillars. He argued that all three persuasive appeals are necessary.

• Is he right? What do you think?